Scat, Urine and Vocal Displays

No, this is not a post about our old fraternity house. It's a post about Colorado. The state has lots of wildlife that is foreign to me. New Jersey had a surprising amount of critters in/around our suburbs - squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, birds, foxes, deer, an occasional bear, possum, raccoons and wild turkeys. But the Rockies are a bit different. In addition to most of the above, we have prairie dogs, moose and rattlesnakes. And coyotes (canis latrans). The coyotes are close. CLOSE. Our area is littered with lost dog/cat posters. One neighbor of mine laughed about it when we chatted one day. "The coyotes get all of them," he says. He used to live on the edge of the complex in the apartment we are renting for a few months and he would see sets of eyes at night in the bushes. We know a family in town whose cat got out in their fenced-in backyard one morning. A neighbor of theirs saw a coyote run off with it in its mouth a few minutes later. 

This news has triggered my wife's Hispanic panic. We are a month away from moving into our house, and she is convinced our 20-lb dog will soon be a coyote meal. So we are educating ourselves a bit. It turns out coyotes are more active and visible in the winter. Breeding season is January and February, so the males are preparing to mark their territory in the hopes of sinking their red rockets.  

How does coyote territory get marked, you may ask? With scat, urine and vocal displays! This is according to the fine folks from my town's Parks, Recreation and Open Space employees. Because I'm immature, I find the use of the word scat very amusing. There seems to be a plethora of less offensive alternatives - feces, dung, excrement, poop, waste, droppings, doodie, etc. Is scat really the most apt word in the Parks and Rec community? Somebody needs to email Leslie Knope and ask. 

To make this whole topic a bit more preposterous, residents are being taught what they can do to protect themselves and their pets. This act is called hazing. Honest to God. Not sure if there is paddling, deep knee bends or songs about Sigma Chi involved. 

So in addition to sidestepping coyote shit and hoping my fluff pile of a dog doesn't get eaten, I need to learn how to haze a coyote. Good times. If you want to dig in further on the topic, read here. Wish me luck.